Band-Aid Journal
Supportive partner
“Gross”
Best Friend
“Why does this exist?”
Let’s be honest,
You clicked on this because of the title, and I am not here to disappoint.
As a kid, I was a weird, gross little hoarder who believed inanimate objects had feelings. This led me to collect Band-Aids—not to use, but to keep. When I was 4, I was forced to use one of my prized bandages and so the Band-Aid Journal was born to preserve my beloved collection and chronicle my adventures through tales of bloody mishaps.
I started making entries again for two reasons:
1) My Band-Aid collection is actually super cool and dates back to the early 1990s
2) Adults don’t get hurt that often and when they do, there’s usually a good story behind it
As you can probably tell, my mom was my ghostwriter from 2003 to 2004 because I didn’t know how to write or spell.
I took over in 2005 because I learned how to write but unfortunately still couldn’t spell.
OG Entries
More coming as I injure myself
New entries
The Lime Bike Incident
10.13.2018
Am I writing this in 2022 because I’m a lazy pos who finally got her life together? Yes. Do I still remember this event like it was yesterday? Yes. Because it was super embarrassing.
Picture this: It’s 2018. Crop tops and distressed mom jeans are in, Cardi B’s I Like It is blasting in every bar in existence and Lime Bikes are every twenty-somethings main method of transportation. It was my senior year of college at UT and more importantly, it was game day.
Football was HUGE this year at UT because we were finally not sucking for the first time in a long time. Around 3 drinks and 3 quarters in, one of my friends had the idea to take Lime bikes downtown. All hopped up on liquid courage, we located the nearest flock of electric scooters and were on our way.
This is where shit hit the fan. Or in my case, the curb.
After electric scooters became popular, many states imposed speed restrictions to keep idiots like me safe. But not Texas (yee haw). In Texas, you could blast up to 20 mph on one of those bad boys. And that’s exactly how fast I was going. Racing to get downtown before the post-game crowd, I hit a pothole and flew, purse contents exploding everywhere (weirdly including a potted plant).
Teary-eyed and extremely embarrassed, I picked up my plant and other personal effects, insisted I was fine and we carried on. But I was not fine. My hands were bleeding and because I was rocking Jesus sandals, my toes were busted too. We reached our destination and I informed the group that I needed to go home. No one offered to go with me and if you can’t tell, I’m still annoyed about that to this day.
The moral of the story? Don’t drunkenly race your friends on electric scooters. I wish I could say I learned my lesson and never scooted drunk again but I was 21 and as they say, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.
Teletubbies Circa 1997
Casper Circa 1995
The Saw Incident
Space Circa 1992
Winnie the Pooh Circa 1998
Sesame Street Circa 1991
11.07. 2021
In this story, I call my dad an asshole. It’s important to know that he is not actually an asshole. But on this day, he was an idiot asshole.
In 2021, I bought a house that needed a lot of TLC including removing some dead trees. Rather than paying thousands for removal, I bought a $200 chainsaw, stocked up on beer, and recruited my dad. We safely cut down eight trees so by the last one, we were way too confident in our arborist abilities.
This tree grew at a 90-degree angle, so our plan was simple: climb a ladder with a chainsaw, make one cut, let it drop straight down. Easy. My dad threw a strap over some branches, told me to pull it to keep the tree steady, and grabbed his pruning saw. If you’ve never seen a pruning saw, it looks like something straight out of the Grim Reaper’s arsenal. It’s basically a saw on a stick and it’s terrifying.
To paint a perfect picture, because this is important, I’m standing directlg under a tree, dad is wielding a scythe. I pointed out that there’s a very real possibility that this tree is going to fall on me. My dad’s response to this concern? “You’ll be fine.”
You would think that as a 24-year-old adult, I would be capable of calling out my father when he’s wrong. But I shrugged, figured he knows best, and stayed where I was. This is where the asshole bit comes in.
He was sawing, I was pulling, and then CRACK. I was ready to haul ass when I felt a sharp pain tear across my side. I assumed that part of the tree had fallen on me but when I opened my eyes, no branches were near me. Confused, I looked down and that’s when I realized that asshole dropped his saw and it was IN MY ARM.
Now that last sentence made it sound like my dad almost amputated me. It wasn’t that bad. My hand was bleeding, my shoulder was obviously bleeding, but nothing was hospital-level bad. Just I-will-hold-this-over-your-head-for-years-level bad. The first thing out of my dad’s mouth: “Don’t tell your mom.”
Ultimately, I was fine. My dad says I make a bigger deal out of it than necessary, but he’s not the one with the saw scars on his arm.